Had the Irving Animal Shelter not been at capacity for quarantine space, the woman mauled to death Saturday by her two pit bulls could have boarded them there — where she wouldn’t have been allowed to visit them — rather than at the Irving animal hospital where the dogs attacked her during a visit.

Irving police spokesman James McLellan said the dogs, who were each about a year old, were quarantined at the clinic after they bit a man in his 20s the night of March 15.

That night, Villafane met officers and Animal Services staff at her house, and she was issued citations for having the dogs running at large and for not having rabies tags, McLellan said.

The bite required that the dogs be quarantined for 10 days to be observed for rabies symptoms, he said, but the Irving Animal Shelter was at capacity for their quarantine space. Villafane was given several options for where to take the dogs to be quarantined, and she signed an agreement saying she would bring them to the animal hospital by the evening of March 16 for quarantine, police said.

The woman had been visiting the clinic for a few days to feed and walk the dogs before Saturday, when they attacked her, McLellan said.

At the Irving Animal Shelter, “they wouldn’t have allowed any contact with her there,” McLellan said. But he said it was up to vet clinics whether to allow owners to interact with their dogs while in quarantine.

Police said staff at the clinic went to check on Villafane, who was in an outside exercise area with the dogs, after they noticed they hadn’t seen her for a while. They found her bloody on the ground and called 911.

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An employee who answered the phone at the animal hospital said staff were praying for the victim’s family but declined to answer any questions.

This is the front of the O'Connor Animal Hospital in Irving, where a woman was mauled to death by her pit bulls Saturday.(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)

Previous biting incident

The dogs escaped from Villafane’s home on Windmill Lane on a Friday night this month by breaking through the shared fence with the next-door neighbor, Grant Dickey. The dogs then got through Dickey’s back fence and were running loose on Compton Street.

Dickey said his friend’s two dogs were outside when the neighbor dogs broke through into the backyard. The friend’s dogs were terrified, he said, but he managed to bring them inside.

Dickey locked the door behind him, he said, remembering a previous time the two pit bulls had broken through his fence and pushed through his back door, which wasn’t latched completely.

Grant Dickey, who lived next door to Johana Villafane before she was mauled by her dogs at an Irving animal hospital, took this photo of damage to his back fence where the dogs escaped into the neighborhood March 15 and bit a man.(Grant Dickey / Courtesy)

McLellan said officers responded to the scene first, then called for help from Animal Control. The officers had to stay in their car because the dogs were “acting aggressively” toward them, he said.

When an Animal Control officer arrived, she had to call for backup, police said.

Dickey said he had several encounters with the two dogs after Villafane and her family moved in about a year ago. The dogs seemed friendly but untrained and out of control, he said.

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“One time, I had this inkling, these dogs are so out of control, I could see them maybe hurting somebody if they got out,” he said.

They were big dogs, so when they jumped up, they could “get up to your face,” Dickey said. Police said Oliver, a black-and-white male, weighed about 85 pounds. Delfina, a brown-and-white female dog, was 80 pounds.

“When you try to push them away, they would get more excited,” Dickey said.

Dickey said he’d reached out to his neighbor last night to offer his condolences to the family.

“I can’t even imagine what they’re going through right now,” he said.

Another neighbor, former City Council member Terry Waldrum, said Villafane, her husband and two children were kind and tended to keep to themselves. The family moved into a house across the street from Waldrum’s in April.

Waldrum said he waved to Villfane on Saturday as she left the house in her truck, and he thought it was odd that he didn’t see the truck return later.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said. “I feel for the two kids.”

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Why dogs attack

In the majority of dog attacks, the animals don't go after their owners, said canine behavior expert Scott Sheaffer, who runs USA Dog Behavior, LLC. That's why he found the Irving case surprising.

There are several reasons a dog might attack its owner, he said. The first is what experts call “conflict aggression,” in which a dog learns to use aggression to get what it wants in an environment where it’s not treated well.

For instance, if a dog is always tethered in a backyard where children throw rocks at it, the dog may learn to act aggressively toward children.

Another reason is “idiopathic aggression,” in which a dog can “go ballistically aggressive to the owner” for no reason, Sheaffer said.

And when one dog starts to attack, it’s common that another dog will get a rush of adrenaline and join in, even if it isn’t typically aggressive, he said.

“They lose control. It’s not unlike a fistfight or a street brawl where all good sense is thrown out the window,” he said.

Pit bulls are often regarded as more dangerous than other types of dogs, but Sheaffer said people tend to hear about more pit bull attacks because there are many breeds under the “pit bull” umbrella and because of the “sheer number of them that people have bred.”

“I have literally worked with thousands of dogs, hundreds of breeds — I see it all — and I can honestly tell you ... I don’t see any correlation between breed and aggression,” Sheaffer said. “I have Dachshunds that want to tear your eyes out, and I have pit bulls that are sweet and lovey-dovey.”

Dana Branham, Breaking news reporter. Dana is a reporter at The Dallas Morning News covering crime and breaking news. She graduated in 2017 from the University of Oklahoma, where she studied journalism. Before coming to The News in 2018, Dana interned at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Tulsa World.